The Sun in 3D

The launch of the NASA Stereo project. It's going to be heading straight for the sun, to map it in 3D, giving a first-ever view of just what's inside the lump of burning shiny stuff. The fascinating NASA website includes more photos of the launch and a bunch of other sections.

Feet firmly on the ground

If yesterday's link to seatguru had you frustrated about the dangers of global warming made worse by air travel, or if you just don't like flying, here's noflytravel. "Explore the world by land and sea." Who needs planes?

Democracy in Sark

The feudal world of Sark in the Channel Isles is on the way out, after a vote this month to abolish the heriditary rule of the island's "seigneur". More from The Times.

Retract

The comparison you need here is with a retractable ballpoint pen. This, the PQI Cool Drive, is another USB memory drive, and in the picture it looks normal enough. The trick, though, is that when you take it out of the PC, instead of putting a cap on it, you press that little black bit at the end, and the USB connector bit is retracted for safety.

Extra legroom

Seatguru - "Your guide to airplane seats and in-flight amenities".

Moblair

Congratulations to Tony Blair, who got his first mobile phone on Friday.

Click, talk, vroom

Streetmouse. It's a USB mouse that looks like a car, and if you're using Skype you can pick it up and have a conversation on it. Just as you'd expect, really.

Exhibit

I was looking at the website for the V & A Museum, tracking down more info on the Surrealism exhibition they've announced for next year, and was quite taken by the range of exhibitions they've got running right now. The pic comes from one on 60s fashion, one of four interesting displays on at the moment, and coming soon there's an intriguing experience called Volume, which will be all light, columns and sound. (Map showing the museum here.)

The girl's out of control

An Asbo for Goldilocks.

Spooky

We're in the second-busiest shopping week of the year, and it's all thanks to Halloween. Spending on scary stuff, fancy dress and parties has gone up ten-fold in the last five years, with the average family spending £65. More from the Observer, here.

Ahhh

Just a cute cat pic

Only because I like it

The Ford Focus ST, reviewed at the excellent 4Car website from Channel 4.

Ten to ten

For £250, this Quadtec watch will display the time digitally, but with an analogue feel. In the picture on the left, it's ten to ten. After half past the hour, the central number switches to show the next hour, and the minutes indicator moves to the left, showing you the time remaining until that hour.

Barking all over the world

Greek dogs don't go woof. They go gav. Sounds of the world's animals.

Relax. It's a map.

To our left, the Tranquility Map from the Campaign to Protect Rural England. They've studied where the best peace and quiet is to be found in England. Northumberland, Cumbria and North Yorkshire come out top. There are more detailed maps for each region on their website.

Bring me sunshine

It's a camera bag which charges your batteries using solar power.

Drink

A world of happy places, from Will Jackson's pub guide

Baby's got blue eyes

Researchers at the University of Tromso (the northernmost university in the world, we learn) believe they've discovered why people with blue eyes are attracted to other people with blue eyes. It's to do with the fact that the genes which give you blue eyes can only be passed down if both parents share the look.

IE7 - We heard you

Gadget Of The Day is just a piece of software. But quite a big one. Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7.

Precisely

As BT launch a competition to find a new voice for the speaking clock, a trip down memory lane. Pat Simmons told us the time from the 60s until 1985. Here she is.

Energy

63% of us leave the light on in an empty room

Hail

The new design for the London taxi.

Virtually real

In the ten days since I first mentioned Second Life on here, its membership has gone up from 358,000 to over a million. Now, Reuters has opened a virtual bureau there. It's not real. Except it is. And yet it isn't. Oh dear.

Cultural learnings

With Borat's new movie coming soon (and I can't wait), I guess it's a bad time for the Kazakh bank to spell the word "bank" wrong on its bank notes.

Ring

Oh yes. Yes yes yes. Retro phones.

Beer

From an American website, which bravely promises "everything you need to be a better journalist", a short piece on what print journalists can learn from radio.

The living dead

In Wellington, New Zealand, last week, they celebrated Friday 13th with a zombie parade. More.

What's that key for?

The Alt Gr key, probably next to your Ctrl key, seems so unloved. What's it there for? Not much, actually. Hold it down and press 4 and you get one of these "€" Euro symbols. Hold it down and press e and you get "é" an e acute. And that's about it. If you feel a need to become an expert on it, here's a full guide, telling us that in Croatia it does all sorts.

Apologies from the New York Daily News

Michael Jackson does not dress in women's clothes as a disguise.

Six

From Georgia, USA, comes news for the lady who's committed bigamy five times. That's six husbands. Four from Ghana, one from Morocco, and one from here in London, so watch yourselves. Her name? McBride.

Style my ear

What you have to our left is the Jabra BT-160. In the middle, a Bluetooth wireless device, and around the outside, all the alternative covers that come with it, just in case you get bored.

Blogfamous

Here's the story of the blogger Nintendo decided would make a perfect ambassador for their new Wii handheld, and here's her blog.

Dangerous

David Lloyd George (quoted by Stephen Fry at the end of QI the other week): "The most dangerous thing in the world is to try to leap a chasm in two jumps."

Shuts it

The Sony NW-S700 MP3 Walkman, promises to cut up to 75% of background noise by detecting it with microphones and then using frequency manipulation to cancel it out.

The value of patient research

Here's a detailed page comparing Tintin's cars to the real models which may (or may not) have inspired them.

Boom

The population of the USA is predicted to reach 300 million tomorrow morning. It hit 200 million in 1967.

Ig

Rude in places, so on your head be it, but just for a laugh here are Iggy Pop's back-stage requirements and guide for tour workers.

(I know he doesn't look like that photo any more. It's from 1987. It seemed kinder.)

New economics

The New Economics Foundation, who told us last week that, between now and the end of the year, we're eating the planet.

The ex

If Tony Blair retires in the spring as expected, he'll be the youngest ex-Prime Minister for 112 years.

(The Earl of Rosebery.)

Big ears

More than you could possibly imagine spending on a pair of earphones - they're from Shure and they'd set you back £400. They do sound amazing apparently, which at that price is just as well.

Second Life

It's a "3D online digital world, imagined, created and owned by its residents" - and it's getting seriously big. Second Life is a bit like Sims, but it's in real time, and there are people playing it in the same space as you, worldwide. It's got 358,000 members, and it's getting bigger all the time. You can read all about it here, from Guardian Unlimited.

Purring without tears

Cats for people who are allergic to cats, from Allerca. More at Medgadget.

Pretty in pink

A Texas sherrif is making all his prison inmates wear pink jump-suits and slippers. They sleep in pink sheets, wear pink underwear, and the cell walls are pink. So are the bars. You get the picture? It's all so pink that reoffending rates have fallen by 70%.

Fitbug

It calls itself "an online personal health & well-being coach, designed for people who know they should be doing more and eating better". It's Fitbug, and it involves a gadget (that's the good bit) and an online subscription to a website where you upload data from the device to see how well you're doing.

MacBook

It's not online, but there was a great article by Jonathan Margolis in FT earlier in the week, in which he confesses to overcoming 20 years of anti-Mac passion, won over by the versatility and the gorgeousness of the latest Apple MacBook.

Hello

Great to hear Leslie Phillips on Five Live and Oneword plugging his new autobiography, "Hello". ("Ding dong" would, presumably, have looked a bit silly on the cover.)

Car interior cleaned at maximum intensity

Dyson's handheld is coming soon - the DC16, reviewed by the Times here. You wouldn't mess with it, would you?

The Adventures of Mr Stephen Fry

Much in the news for the excellent "Secret Life of the Manic Depressive", and for his decision to host the BAFTAs no more, here's Stephen Fry's website.

Rotten

100,000 rotting apples feature in a display at the Battersea Power Station, as part of an exhibition of Chinese culture, previewed here by Time Out. It's your last chance to see the power station in its current form. And the apples, too.

David Cook

Music stars' real names

Sitting comfortably

Chairs and lighting - always worth the money. Well, maybe not always - the chair on the left is £700, but then it is the best chair in the world.

They're watching you

The New Statesman reported last week that Britain has 20% of the world's CCTV cameras, in a country which makes up 0.2% of the world's inhabitable land mass. The average Londoner is monitored by 300 cameras per day.

Moving with the times

The Lord Mayor of London's coach is to get interior lighting for the first time, ready for next month's Lord Mayor's Show. It's only taken 249 years.

Somewhere to stay

A quick canter through some well-reviewed places for UK getaways:

Clow Beck House, listed in the newly-published Good Hotel Guide 2007 as offering "utterly enjoyable mild eccentricity"

Bruern Holiday Cottages in the Cotswolds

The new Lemongrass Suite at Le Manoir Aux Quat' Saisons

And, judging by the photos my favourite, The Boatshed at The Ardanaiseig Hotel by Loch Awe

Old Harley

A classic Harley motorbike from 1915, at Atlantic Motor Cycles, just down the road from me in Twyford.

Sticky

USB memory sticks. Stick-like ones. Wooden. Just like real sticks. From Ooms. I know I'm falling for style over substance again, but they're really cool.

Blogs on the blog

Here are some BBC-related blogs, as diverse as could be:

Chris Evans

Richard Sambrook (Director of BBC Global News - personal blog)

Island Blogging (from the Northern Isles, the Western Isles, and the Argyll and Clyde Islands)

Vroom

We're spending more on cars - the average car purchase (combining new and used) is £9,586. Men spend more on cars than women, by about £1,000, but women are catching up, say AA Personal Loans. Since they paid for the survey, it's fair enough that they asked a couple of questions about loans. The cars most likely to be bought outright, rather than with a loan, are those bought by the over-50s, and sports cars.

Ride like the wind

Completely bonkers, of course, but here's the latest energy-saving car. It runs from solar and wind power. Around 30 miles is both its top speed (per hour) and its range. More here.

Photoblog

Mute

Box On Head

I've previously posted some of the "Irresistible Headlines" created by the good folks of NBC Channel 17. I particularly like "Suspect Wears Box On Head To Courthouse". (There's no real need to click the link. All you need to know is in the headline. But I guess you'll do it anyway.)

Theirspace

Mitchell And Webb on MySpace. They're the boys from the wacky BBC2 comedy that comes on after Extras (which, incidentally, is truly brilliant in its second series). Here they are, quoted recently in the Observer:

"We had to invent some names for biscuits," David Mitchell and Robert Webb tell Arena, complaining about branding issues on their new BBC Two show That Mitchell and Webb Look. "We came up with a few, including Plopnobs, but we couldn't use that because it turns out there actually are Plopnobs, which I couldn't f***ing believe. This is the world we've made for our children."

Donate more easily

Buy one of these for your church, and visitors can make a donation just by popping in their bank card and PIN number. The LA Times explains.

Modern phobias...

... "Everybody has at least one."

More of this, I'm sure, nearer publication, but for now, this author profile, from Bloomsbury.

The book's very funny. But it's not published yet, and I was only allowed to see a copy for about three minutes, before it was whipped out of my hands, and it was gone.

Out November 7th.

Chocolate By The Bald Man

Newly opened just off Union Square in New York, a chocolate bar. Not a bar of chocolate. Like a coffee bar, but with chocolate instead. Including, for instance, a chocolate pizza. Reuters review it here, and their website is here.

Your radio, your way

The new Intempo DAB radio - change the appearance of the front by adding your own photo.

Blogs need TLC

So John's Blog is now just over four months old. Who'd have thought? And how did I keep it going when I was on holiday? Well, that's a secret, but I didn't do it like this. The "blogsitter" service sells itself as follows:

Are you a blogger? Do you face some no-internet-days, holidays or something else that keeps you from updating your precious blog? And you know that a blog without daily updates dies very fast? Don't worry any longer! blogsitter.net is the plattform for bloggers who need caring people to sit their blogs. Register and place your advertisment to search for a fitting blogsitter. Someone who has your skills in the field of your blog, someone who is trustful and eager to care about your blog.

Ugly. Very ugly.

Ah, yes, that'll be officially the ugliest vegetable in Britain, the winner in a competition organised by the National Trust (of all people). It's a parsnip. More here.

Rocket man

So, space tourism really is coming. Virgin Galactic has launched. The website seems a bit too clever for its own good, or maybe just too clever for my laptop, so let's hope the £110,000 flight's a bit more smooth. Download the brochure here, if you'd rather avoid all that Flash, and there's more here from Popular Science.

Pandora and the box

www.pandora.com is one of several sites which aims to introduce you to new music, using your current tastes as its guide. LAUNCHcast from Yahoo Music is another.